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DHS documents released with FOIA analysis (quick and dirty version)

Submitted by rene on Sun, 04/07/2013 - 02:20

Alright, occupiers. Let's talk a bit about the recent news on the DHS FOIA documents that were released. I've been reading too many reports that mis-characterize the info contained in the documents and offer a superficial analysis of DHS activities. I'm a pretty good speed reader and I went through every report (hundreds of pages) and found in that quick skim to have a much different opinion than the "journalists". It's a long post but it's full of good stuff so get some coffee and read the hell out of this...

So first of all, these documents come from a specific department of the DHS known as the FPS (Federal Protection Service) which is a division of the NPPD (National Protection & Programs). By the way, it was Obama that moved this department from Immigration & Customs enforcement to the DHS. The FPS is an agency which wikipedia says "is responsible for law enforcement and facility security for nearly 9,000 federally owned and leased buildings, courthouses, properties, and other federal assets and the personnel associated with those assets." So, the FPS is pretty much just the glorified security for federal buildings. They do a little more stuff but that's pretty much it. This tells me right away that any of the shady shit we're really looking for (ala COINTELPRO) isn't going to be anywhere near this division's jurisdiction not that they'd release any shady shit under FOIA anyway... But, that doesn't mean that apparent lack of knowing "what's REALLY going on" and lack of detail on specific individuals in the reports shows that the government isn't doing shady shit. It just means that it's highly unlikely to be in these released reports which were used for a division that's low in the chain of command.

The FPS covers the entire country by 11 regions and each PDF are of all the released documents for that specific region except that we only have reports for regions 1-9 and excluding 7. Not sure why. Boston is region 1 so if you just want to read OB specific stuff, you can just check the first PDF.

Now the content. Most of it relates to the FPS's jurisdiction and so a lot of the info is pretty much the public calendar of each occupy and many times, news reports. They did have agents on the ground as well that attended GA's and gather intelligence as to when marches and events were happening but only when it had something to do with Federal property. You see a lot of talk about the Coakley courthouse, for instance. That being said, there is still some interesting stuff in here that we can use to piece together a picture of what they were up to. In one email, who's sender's name is redacted, asks "I need an update on what these groups are doing wherever they are in New England not just at Federal bldgs. thnks". This could be something. But the following is probably the most interesting email I caught and I'm surprised it made it in.

Good Morning RDs/DRDs,
As "Occupy" type protests continue to occur throughout the nation, several law enforcement organizations have undertaken steps to discontinue Occupy encampments within their jurisdictions or are in negotiations with demonstrators to close them down.

As these activities are undertaken by your local law enforcement partners, [redacted] has requested that Regional Directors continue to assess the potential impact that these events may have at/near federal facilities within the FPS AOR.

Once you have completed your assessment, please provide [redacted] TMD Director [redacted] and I a synopsis of any potential Occupy events or LE activities that may occur this week within your region that may also impact our facilities. Thank you for your assistance concerning this matter.

Ok, so here we have officials talking about how law enforcement was actively trying to end the Occupy movement but this is nothing new but it does show how the FPS was involved by coordinating with other agencies to their own assigned jobs.

Other interesting things to note about our region's report...
**The FPS was very active and ready the first day/night of Occupy Boston's occupation. Surprisingly aware and caught up, too. FPS was following Occupy Boston since before the occupation. There's emails in here reporting on the decisions made at the GA's in the Common.
**The primers on the OM (Occupy Movement), as they call it, are quite good considering how early on they were written and how much the press seemed to struggle with wrapping their head around what it was.
**The FPS cooperates with BRIC (Boston Regional Intelligence Center), our local fusion center, and have access to and use BRIC reports.
**Most of the redacted text is of names of people. In fact, none of these reports name anyone whatsoever or at least as far as I could tell.
**FPS seemed interested in how Occupy Boston was marching in solidarity with someone likely to be Tarek Mehanna (the name was redacted). The interest is concerning how the march will end up at federal property (Coakley Courthouse) but the report refers to the redacted name that seems as if the reader is expected to have familiarity with that person's deal.
**There is this one email sent Nov 15, 2011 that has an attachment called "Occupy Movement 11-15-2011.doc". I wonder what was in it!
**Some emails are completely redacted and a few emails have a large redacted portion on them. I think it's a picture or a flyer of some sort but I'm not sure why it was redacted. It could also have been a long email/report. Who's to say?

Now, I looked at region 1's report more closely than the others but feel free to give those a better read than I did. I'm sure region 9's report has some great stuff in it as it's the longest report and includes Occupy Oakland. I remember reading this one email and all it said was something like "[redacted]Remember, Occupy is using First Amendment Protected rights... [redacted][redacted][redacted]". It felt like we were being mocked or something.

So, there you go. Don't always believe what you read in the press. Even the lefty press. Actually, especially the lefty/"progressive" news sources because I find they tend to over sensationalize in order to obtain maximum media impact for "the cause" but I think this only hurts the cause. Go to the primary source.